Guidance to Excellence

My PhD studies at HEC Paris were a very formative, rich and intense experience. Faculty members are at the forefront of research in their field, and always willing to generously share their time with PhD students. HEC Paris is also very supportive in getting student to present their work, in internal brown bag seminars and in international conferences. All of this contributed mightily to my job market outcome that saw me receive offers from several world-class institutions.

Top Placements

I recently joined Harvard Business School as an Assistant Professor, my dream job. The quality of the HEC Paris PhD Program played a large role in this successful outcome of my job search. The course curriculum and the faculty support I received during my studies strengthened my academic knowledge, and helped me to develop original and innovative research. HEC Paris is uniquely placed in Europe to deliver on its student placement.

Teaching PhD Students

I enjoy teaching the PhD students at HEC Paris in the first-year course in Microeconomics, both the students in my own field, of decision sciences, and in other fields such as finance, strategy, marketing and the other specializations. I believe that rigorous training in the fundamental disciplines, such as micro, behavioral sciences, statistics, and econometrics lays the foundations for a high-quality PhD thesis and for a successful research career in the highly competitive academic environment of our times.

Itzhak Gilboa
AXA Chair Professor of Decision Sciences, HEC Paris

Academic Visits

I am a visiting fellow at MIT Sloan where I have the opportunity to attend the classes of renowned professors like Scott Stern and Eric von Hippel, in addition to the weekly seminars held at the National Bureau of Economic Research. The close-knit community at MIT allows me to work comfortably with other PhD students, and living in Cambridge, MA, means I can interact with a variety of scholars and professors from the surrounding universities of Harvard, BU, and Tufts. Every day from the MIT Innovation Initiative offices near Kendall, I work elbow-to-elbow with entrepreneurs while conducting my own research in innovation—talk about the ideal combination of academic discipline and practical experience!

Wendy Bradley
PhD student in Strategy & Management

Dedicated Supervisors

At HEC Paris, our PhD program enables students to achieve the best of their potential, advance research on critical domains, and serve society. Our goal is that they produce research findings that will not only help them to join the best academic institutions in the world, but also have an impact because they contribute to our understanding of fundamental economic, social, and organizational phenomena.

Rodolphe Durand
GDF Suez Professor of Strategic Management, HEC Paris

A Worldwide Network

Exchanging ideas with researchers from other institutions is important. HEC is a vibrant institution with frequent research seminars given by speakers from all around the world. It provides unique opportunities for students to learn and discuss about up-to-date research while constantly meeting new researchers. Thanks to the HEC Foundation, students are encouraged to spend time abroad as visiting scholars and as attendees of top conferences. For example, I spent six months at the University of Michigan where I had the chance to receive guidance from renowned faculty in my field and start research collaborations. I feel that HEC Paris gave me the keys to prepare myself for a fruitful academic career.

Realize Your Potential

During my time as a doctoral candidate at the strategy department of HEC Paris, I was given autonomy to work on my ideas and the opportunity to advance and sharpen them through the guidance of highly qualified faculty and interactions with an extremely diverse group of fellow PhD students. HEC also enabled me to connect with the global academic community by funding my participation in the top conferences in my field and an academic visit to Cornell University.

One-on-One Supervision

I have been supervising PhD students for seven years now. I am extremely proud of all of my current and former students! As a thesis supervisor, you need to give clear direction, but you also need to give room to students’ personal discovery by trial and error. You need to give all the support you can give, and then you need to let them go their own way. I love working together with my PhD students. It is enriching to see them grow and become experts in a field.

Kristine De Valck
Associate Professor of Marketing

Interaction with highly qualified Faculty

At HEC, I benefited from a demanding training as well as constructive interactions with highly qualified faculty who played a central role in my development as a scholar. In particular, I learned a lot from the fruitful relationship I built with my advisor, from internal seminars, and from stimulating exchanges with other HEC Ph.D. students. Thanks to the HEC Foundation funding and my advisor’s support, I also had the opportunity to attend international conferences and meet some prominent professors who engaged with my research. It is with great enthusiasm but also a bit of nostalgia that I leave HEC and begin a new chapter of my academic career as an assistant professor at Bocconi University.

Research, the Essence of the Ph.D. Program

Our Ph.D. students are fully integrated into the research ecosystem at HEC and greatly contribute to the publication output of the school.

Christophe Pérignon
Associate Dean for Research
Associate Professor of Finance

Guidance to Excellence

My PhD studies at HEC Paris have been an enriching experience, both personally and professionally. HEC has been a nurturing environment that provided rigorous training, and at the same time ensured me the freedom to develop my own original ideas. Faculty members are cutting-edge researchers, and provided me with supportive supervision and constant interaction and guidance. The quality of the faculty and of the program as a whole has been central to the successful outcome of my job search.

HEC provides students with plenty of research resources

The HEC PhD Program offers me a systematic training in doing research, starting from generating good research ideas, searching for the appropriate methodology and data, to finally providing new evidence to contribute to extant literature. Furthermore, faculty members are also willing to help and to work with students. Such a constructive environment and its diversity help me conduct my research project and also those in collaboration with faculty. Moreover, HEC provides students with plenty of research resources and opportunities to present their projects at top-level conferences and join job market events. All of those are crucial for a PhD student to succeed.

«Every leading business school or university recruits its professors on the basis of their promise to carry out groundbreaking research and to publish in the leading research journals. The HEC Paris Ph.D. Program prepares students for this challenge. It offers the training needed to enter the demanding world of academia. Built on a strategy of excellence, it aims to attract students with the highest level of academic ambition. The hallmarks of our program are intensive coursework, close supervision and full immersion in the school’s research activities.»